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The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) announced this week that it will hand over five South Sudanese prisoners of war to the Red Cross on February 11 in the city of Nially in Darfur, and called for a reciprocal gesture from the south.

SAF spokesman, Colonel al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad, said the soldiers were captured in South Darfur in April last year.

Aguer said South Sudan was not in a position to reciprocate because it is holding no northern soldiers captive.

The last time South Sudan captured prisoners of war was in April 2012 in Heglig, the oil town that the once unified Sudans fought over from late March until late April last year, he said.

But, added Aguer, all of those POWs were turned over to the Egyptian ambassador to South Sudan in the presence of the Red Cross shortly after the conflict ended.